Future of Gnucash (Javascript?)

[Donald Allen]

2010/12/28 Christian Stimming <stimming at tuhh.de>:
> Am Dienstag, 28. Dezember 2010 schrieb Jeff Warnica:
>> The question shouldn't be "C++ or not", but "what is the best
>> 2nd/runtime/scripting language?"
>>
>> In 2010/2011, given that Gnucash isn't a game, there is really only one
>> choice: Javascript. While http://live.gnome.org/Gjs seems rather dead,
>> http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell is obviously committed to Javascript (and
>> Gjs as the binding toolkit). The low-level infrastructure is there, Gnome
>> 3.0/GnomeShell 1.0 time frame is shorter then Gnucash 2.6, at the very
>> least.
>
> As I've written in my other message: Yes. A scripting language might be even
> better than any compiled language such as C++. I would love to see an example
> project which shows how something similar to gnucash can be build using
> Javascript. I'm not familiar with GnomeShell so far, so I won't work on such
> an experiment as a starter. But if someone can show to us how something
> similar to gnucash would be started in Javascript, I would surely consider
> this a very good option to choose.
>
> One minor issue against the language, though: IMHO the syntax sucks. Also, for
> a newcomer it sucks that the syntax tricks you into thinking it were similar
> to Java. It is not, not at all. In reality it is rather much more similar to
> Scheme (heh), but the syntax tries its best to hide this from the programmer.
> Ok, maybe that's just the beginner's learning curve, but currently I don't
> like the language. You are heartly invited to prove me otherwise.

I don't want to start a language war, but you and I disagreed some
time ago about C++, which I think is one of the most awful examples of
programming language mis-design I can think of. This is not to say
that I think your Cutecash experiment was foolishness; I don't. C++
gave you access to primitives in Qt that C and gtk do not and despite
what I consider to be the deficits of C++ as a language, the
combination is almost certainly more powerful than C/gtk. But perhaps
Gnucash can, in the future, have its cake and eat it, too: a
well-designed, easy-to-learn-and-write language that sits on top of
the kind of primitives needed to easily building a better GUI for
gnucash. An earlier message from you mentions Python and Ruby; those
may well be candidates. I have direct experience with Python and think
it's very well done (language, documentation, richness of the library
is all there). I don't know Ruby, but I've heard good things about it,
but I'm not in a position to comment further. I also have direct
experience with C++ over a number of years and you already know my
thoughts about it.

I would also second your open-ness to an interpreted language. Today's
hardware is so fast that interpreted languages can deliver GUI
performance that is compatible with human reaction times and desire
for instant gratification.

Javascript? I have direct experience with it, too, but not a lot, but
it didn't strike me as a horror show. As for its similarity to Scheme,
that seems like a pretty big stretch, but if it's true, I see that as
a feature, not a bug :-)

/Don


>
> Best Regards,
>
> Christian
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